ABSTRACT
March 29, 1869, was a cold, snowy day in Rhode Island, and a fateful one for Ida Lewis. It was on that day that two soldiers, Sergeant James Adams and Private John McLaughlin, hired a 14year-old boy to pilot their way on a small boat through Newport Harbor toward the army post at nearby Fort Adams. The boy had claimed to know the harbor well, but the waters were rough and the boat soon capsized. The boy, sadly, was swallowed into the icy depths. The soldiers clung for their lives to the overturned boat when they were spotted by Lewis’ mother, from her vantage point at the Lime Rock lighthouse. She alerted her daughter, 27-year-old Ida, who immediately ran to her rowboat, not bothering to grab a coat or hat, or even to lace on shoes. With the help of her younger brother, Ida made her way to the wreck and hauled the two men into her boat, returning them to the lighthouse in a frigid but safe condition. Biographer George Brewerton described the rescue this way in 1869:
The patient toiling girl, immersed in vulgar cares of mending or preparing for the evening meal, becomes the heroine, flying … to the rescue of the perishing. She has no shoes upon her feet, no hat upon her head, no outer garment to protect her slight figure from the storm. A towel is hastily seized and knotted loosely about her neck, and her stocking clad feet are bruised by the sharp rocks and stones, as she speeds her way to the ever-ready boat … Pull bravely … fame, success, and a nation’s encomiums wait upon your exertions.
